I'm a Diebold basher as well. They've completely screwed the pooch, so to speak, on electronic voting and public trust.
However,
It's not so much the company 'Diebold' that is at fault as the small company they bought out that was doing electronic voting development. And had started the shit that has been hitting the fan.
Diebold is a lock and security company that happened to buy a terrible, untrustworthy little company for a forray into electronic voting.
If your iPod's battery goes (there's a certain threshold for apple to take it back) within a year, they'll replace it. Two years if you buy iPod applecare.
If it goes and it's not under any sort of warrantee, you can pay apple $99 for a battery replacement. That's including everything. *Or* if you're savvy enough you can go online and order a do-it-yourself battery replacement for considerably cheaper.
Seems like W. Russell Jones is trying to apply 1900-era economics to a collaborative, abstract, not-truly-market-driven, positive-feedback context.
There might be security concerns with Open Source (he, most interestingly, doesn't go into security concerns with closed source or compare track-records); however, Russell is trying to pull a fast one as this is a different (and, I'd argue, wrongful) criticism of OS.
... and an add for a new HP computer immediately follows the article.
Beautiful.
Re:Mathematics not universal?
on
The Golden Ratio
·
· Score: 4, Insightful
Well, I wouldn't say that "if a different civilization has different mathematics, they have different physical laws as well."
Rather, I'd set mathematics and logic equal (there's a respected tradition that does, see Bertrand Russell, Principia Mathematica). Then, to say that mathematics isn't the same across the universe, one would say that logic isn't the same across the universe.
Now, "Logic isn't universal" is a damn meaningless statement. It'd translate into "Logic cannot describe [timespace-area/context] X." Which is, of course, a logical assertion about X.
I think either the reviewer's portrayal of the argument or the argument itself is bogus.
A Bayesian spam filter teamed with a standard grammar checker adapted from an open-source word processor.
It'll take more processing power, and lead to spammers following proper grammar in their pseudo-nonsense, but it's the way to raise the bar against this attack (making those spammers that can't clear the bar out of luck).
First off, wonderful submission. It's well-written, well-meaning, and helpful.
Now, are things different on Wall Street? I trade stocks for a living. Some of it is daytrading. from the category Cliff chose, 'from the daytraders-and-lawyers-live-on-different-planets-t han-we-do dept.', the implication is that things work differently in the stock market. That's sort of the case, but not entirely.
The key issue here is potential; *if* SCO wins, it'll win $3B plus leverage vs every single linux user (if collectable, $699/installation for single-cpu installations, more for more processors; also $39(?) per embedded device). The payoff is huge and Wall Street functions on potential and leverage.
What does this imply (or explain) about SCOX and said stock price? I once read an insightful quip in an investment article about SCO; the quip was 'Buying SCOX is like buying a lottery ticket'. Meaning, there's a huge potential payoff but, chances are, you'll get nothing. The SCOX stock price, hence, is an average of the perception of those two extremes.
2 years from now, SCOX will either be worth $100+/share or $0/share.
In conclusion, the rising stock price is a function of Wall Street's perception of the odds of this lottery ticket.
'Consumers now have available to them an increasing variety of authorized outlets from which they can purchase digital music and consumers are using those services in growing numbers.'
Unfortunately (as was hinted at in another comment), The Big 5, acting as one, still control the material; yes, we have more middlemen ('outlets') to sell it to John Q. Public, but the middlemen have no choice in supply. Hence, 'consumers' (the term the DOJ used) still don't have any true choice.
If one manufacturer had a monopoly on car batteries, yet I can buy said batteries from Target, Wal-Mart, Ace Hardware, and a few other stores, do I really have a choice? Is there any significant change to the monopoly status?
I think the DOJ is wearing the wrong kind of glasses, metaphorically speaking.
RD
"Systemantics" has a larger context
on
Systemantics
·
· Score: 4, Informative
"Systemantics" is a work in the context/field of General Systems Theory, pioneered by the philosopher Ervin Laszlo.
General Systems Theory says that "invariances of organization" exist; that some things allow complex organization and will be found throughout organized systems, and we can meaningfully study systems through studying these invariances. Also by creating analogies between systems (i.e. such as an ant colony and a communist society). We must also look at parts of a system in a holistic setting- i.e. examine not only parts of a system and their properties, but also their relationships to other parts. Etc. It's good. Check out The Systems View of the World if you're interested.
Systemantics seems to be a work aimed at discovering and exploring these "invariances of organization".
To quote, "No, banning is not the answer. Because we frequently suffer from the scourge of information pollution, we find it hard to imagine its even deadlier opposite information starvation. I get very annoyed when I hear arguments usually from those who have been educated beyond their intelligence about the virtues of keeping happy, backwards people in ignorance."
I would suggest that he should use the term 'information dillution' rather than 'information pollution' in this case (it seems he's referring to the signal-to-noise issue, which is dillution-based- unless too much information itself is a form of polluting our information reservoirs? Regardless, I'd say let's save that term for real information pollution, i.e. FUD)
As for "I get very annoyed when I hear arguments usually from those who have been educated beyond their intelligence about the virtues of keeping happy, backwards people in ignorance," Clarke is clearly a thinker and a powerful rhetoritician. I don't disagree with his conclusion, but I wonder if his powerful rhetoric (i.e. such a broadly applicable, powerful, yet vague criticism) hinders his readers' ability for clear thinking in this example.
Things like this are what makes academic research Really Cool and allows useful things to come about, Go Cornell.
I'd note that this is a novel approach, and, for better or for worse, it goes about doing things much differently than our minds do.
Actually, though, it's closer to how humans understand writing (stringing together atomic words/phrases in an implicit context) than previous statistical methods.... and I'd relate my 2nd and 3rd paragraph if it wasn't 3am here. Goodnight, slashdot.:)
RD
What has happened to those who haven't settled?
on
RIAA Extends Legal Action
·
· Score: 2, Interesting
It's interesting to see the statistics on how many people have settled, but I'd be more interested in what has happened to those who haven't settled.
Hardball tactics only work if people think you'll be able to follow through; if they don't follow through on the holdouts, then this tactic collapses.
Slashdot Mirror
I'm not a programmer.
Is this a good thing or bad thing is alive?
... pale in comparison to ASCII-mation.
Episode four in under a meg!
Actually more modern Intel processors run an 800mhz frontside bus.
However, your point is well taken that the G5 architecture seems to impliment a better memory architecture.
I'm a Diebold basher as well. They've completely screwed the pooch, so to speak, on electronic voting and public trust.
However,
It's not so much the company 'Diebold' that is at fault as the small company they bought out that was doing electronic voting development. And had started the shit that has been hitting the fan.
Diebold is a lock and security company that happened to buy a terrible, untrustworthy little company for a forray into electronic voting.
For what it's worth.
RD
Sort of.
iPods are not 'throw away devices' by any means.
If your iPod's battery goes (there's a certain threshold for apple to take it back) within a year, they'll replace it. Two years if you buy iPod applecare.
If it goes and it's not under any sort of warrantee, you can pay apple $99 for a battery replacement. That's including everything. *Or* if you're savvy enough you can go online and order a do-it-yourself battery replacement for considerably cheaper.
Once again, this is not a 'throw away' issue.
RD
"theodp" is probably the NY Times journalist who wrote this article about astroturfing-- astroturfing his article here on slashdot. ;)
"Another big name looks like it's going to shack up with Linux."
Linux seems to really get around. But what will the children look like?
This looks like a good thing. However, in a quick glance-through of the act, I didn't see anything dealing with information already collected.
Or if governmental agencies' practices are also influenced by the act.
RD
Netcraft says that his server (running IIS) has only been up for 2 days.
I wonder if he's getting what he paid for.
'You get what you pay for'?
Seems like W. Russell Jones is trying to apply 1900-era economics to a collaborative, abstract, not-truly-market-driven, positive-feedback context.
There might be security concerns with Open Source (he, most interestingly, doesn't go into security concerns with closed source or compare track-records); however, Russell is trying to pull a fast one as this is a different (and, I'd argue, wrongful) criticism of OS.
RD
... and an add for a new HP computer immediately follows the article.
Beautiful.
Well, I wouldn't say that "if a different civilization has different mathematics, they have different physical laws as well."
Rather, I'd set mathematics and logic equal (there's a respected tradition that does, see Bertrand Russell, Principia Mathematica). Then, to say that mathematics isn't the same across the universe, one would say that logic isn't the same across the universe.
Now, "Logic isn't universal" is a damn meaningless statement. It'd translate into "Logic cannot describe [timespace-area/context] X." Which is, of course, a logical assertion about X.
I think either the reviewer's portrayal of the argument or the argument itself is bogus.
RD
Anyone know how much an average lawsuit like this will cost the RIAA, all told?
RD
A Bayesian spam filter teamed with a standard grammar checker adapted from an open-source word processor.
It'll take more processing power, and lead to spammers following proper grammar in their pseudo-nonsense, but it's the way to raise the bar against this attack (making those spammers that can't clear the bar out of luck).
Reminds me of a Dr. Seus book...
RD
First off, wonderful submission. It's well-written, well-meaning, and helpful.
t han-we-do dept.', the implication is that things work differently in the stock market. That's sort of the case, but not entirely.
Now, are things different on Wall Street?
I trade stocks for a living. Some of it is daytrading. from the category Cliff chose, 'from the daytraders-and-lawyers-live-on-different-planets-
The key issue here is potential; *if* SCO wins, it'll win $3B plus leverage vs every single linux user (if collectable, $699/installation for single-cpu installations, more for more processors; also $39(?) per embedded device). The payoff is huge and Wall Street functions on potential and leverage.
What does this imply (or explain) about SCOX and said stock price?
I once read an insightful quip in an investment article about SCO; the quip was 'Buying SCOX is like buying a lottery ticket'. Meaning, there's a huge potential payoff but, chances are, you'll get nothing. The SCOX stock price, hence, is an average of the perception of those two extremes.
2 years from now, SCOX will either be worth $100+/share or $0/share.
In conclusion, the rising stock price is a function of Wall Street's perception of the odds of this lottery ticket.
RD
'Consumers now have available to them an increasing variety of authorized outlets from which they can purchase digital music and consumers are using those services in growing numbers.'
Unfortunately (as was hinted at in another comment), The Big 5, acting as one, still control the material; yes, we have more middlemen ('outlets') to sell it to John Q. Public, but the middlemen have no choice in supply. Hence, 'consumers' (the term the DOJ used) still don't have any true choice.
If one manufacturer had a monopoly on car batteries, yet I can buy said batteries from Target, Wal-Mart, Ace Hardware, and a few other stores, do I really have a choice? Is there any significant change to the monopoly status?
I think the DOJ is wearing the wrong kind of glasses, metaphorically speaking.
RD
"Systemantics" is a work in the context/field of General Systems Theory, pioneered by the philosopher Ervin Laszlo.
General Systems Theory says that "invariances of organization" exist; that some things allow complex organization and will be found throughout organized systems, and we can meaningfully study systems through studying these invariances. Also by creating analogies between systems (i.e. such as an ant colony and a communist society). We must also look at parts of a system in a holistic setting- i.e. examine not only parts of a system and their properties, but also their relationships to other parts. Etc. It's good. Check out The Systems View of the World if you're interested.
Systemantics seems to be a work aimed at discovering and exploring these "invariances of organization".
RD
"Maybe if game developers could dream up a genre other than fantasy, problems like this would be averted..." BWHAHAHAH
Great idea, but grad students are still cheaper. :)
RD
To quote,
"No, banning is not the answer. Because we frequently suffer from the scourge of information pollution, we find it hard to imagine its even deadlier opposite information starvation. I get very annoyed when I hear arguments usually from those who have been educated beyond their intelligence about the virtues of keeping happy, backwards people in ignorance."
I would suggest that he should use the term 'information dillution' rather than 'information pollution' in this case (it seems he's referring to the signal-to-noise issue, which is dillution-based- unless too much information itself is a form of polluting our information reservoirs? Regardless, I'd say let's save that term for real information pollution, i.e. FUD)
As for "I get very annoyed when I hear arguments usually from those who have been educated beyond their intelligence about the virtues of keeping happy, backwards people in ignorance,"
Clarke is clearly a thinker and a powerful rhetoritician. I don't disagree with his conclusion, but I wonder if his powerful rhetoric (i.e. such a broadly applicable, powerful, yet vague criticism) hinders his readers' ability for clear thinking in this example.
RD
Things like this are what makes academic research Really Cool and allows useful things to come about, Go Cornell.
... and I'd relate my 2nd and 3rd paragraph if it wasn't 3am here. Goodnight, slashdot. :)
I'd note that this is a novel approach, and, for better or for worse, it goes about doing things much differently than our minds do.
Actually, though, it's closer to how humans understand writing (stringing together atomic words/phrases in an implicit context) than previous statistical methods.
RD
It's interesting to see the statistics on how many people have settled, but I'd be more interested in what has happened to those who haven't settled.
Hardball tactics only work if people think you'll be able to follow through; if they don't follow through on the holdouts, then this tactic collapses.
Anyone have information?
RD
Unemployment is a tool, or a stage. It's not an end (in either sense of the word).
I know it's slashdot, but can we not always talk in absolutes and maybe give the other side a little credit? At least the benefit of the doubt?
RD
That's an unreasonable assumption; I am not on unemployment and never have been.
Not that there's anything wrong with being on unemployment.
"Tax time"?
:)
The joke's on you, I'm a philosopher! Can't pay taxes on what you don't make.
RD